Death's In The Goodbye
by ErisandDysnomia
Summary: "But still, something bugged the officer about the image in front of him. When it finally did hit him, it was as if the air flew out of his lungs and a hysterical grin stretched across his face."  Daryl and Glenn didn't come back,and Rick had to fix that


**Author's note: So, this is not exactly…happy. In fact, it's not even close, but you know, when you have a plot that slams itself against your head again and again, you just have to take it. So, enjoy?**

**Oh, and as for the girl in the photograph, I guess you could consider her Lee, from my other fic. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own TWD, and this has language, graphic violence, character death, and suicide. Oh, and the title is a quote from Anne Sexton **

Death's in the Good-Bye

The picture in front of the Sherriff didn't make sense. Hell, he doubted it would ever make sense. And it wasn't just the blood on the walls the rivaled the red that painted the sky as the sun left him to mourn in darkness. It was more than just the fear twisted into the Pizza boy's eyes, and the strangely still body of the Hunter. It was the fact that it was them. It was Glenn, and it was Daryl. And they were dead.

It hadn't been hard to find the two of them, they had made a supply run, down to a tacky little tourist town. No harm, no foul, should've been quick and easy. And that's why Rick agreed. After all, they were weaker now, out on the road all the time. They did need the supplies, but they also didn't need to risk both those men. They were invaluable at this point, if there was anything to find, Glenn would find it. And Daryl, well, Daryl could take down ten Walkers without making a sound.

But they had gone on how many supply runs in the past? And it had always gone well in the past. They had always come back when they said they would, either full hands or empty hands. They'd always come back when they said they would. The two men had respected that, and didn't want the group to worry. So, when night had fallen, and the sun had risen, Rick knew something must have gone wrong.

He'd brought Shane, and only Shane. They really didn't need to drag anymore men into this mission. Especially if it ended up being a Walker infested nightmare.

_Well, Rick had been half right. When he and Shane had rolled on up, there had been plenty of Walkers, but none of them walking._

They had parked their car next to a truck, and had found themselves standing along a graveyard of epic proportions. Blood, bullet shells and bolts decorated the corpses that piled along the way. A clear trail to a house along the way. Rick had almost felt like Daryl, seeing the trail amongst the destruction. Or, if he was to be a lot more honest with himself, he saw the trail that stood out among the similarity of the land. Body, after body, after body.

The two had followed that trail, until it wasn't so clear where the men had took off to. Shane twitched his head to the right, and Rick agreed. They'd each clear a house. Hell, it seemed like the Walkers had cleared out completely, so they parted ways.

The house smelt like death, but it wasn't the same as the stale, sun caked scent that he'd grown so used to since he'd woken up from his coma. But the smell that assaulted his nose was similar to the scent that lingered on his hands after handing his son a few coins for the ice cream man. That smell that wouldn't wash off, not matter how hard you tried. It had to fade, and it would fade in time. And he knew, that the smell would be burned into his nose, and reside in the back of his throat.

There were a few more felled Walkers in the house, and they pointed to the stairs. So, that's where Rick went. He felt like he was following a monster to its den. There was no way of knowing what was at the end of the tunnel. And he prayed to God, that he'd open the door on the left, and be on the wrong end of a trigger happy redneck's crossbow.

Rick double checked his gun, made sure that it was loaded and he placed his hand on the closest door to him. Slowly, the door opened, easily and Rick froze. He softly called out their names, praying for an answer, but wasn't answered. He steeled his nerves, and pushed the door open.

It looked like it had once been a bonus room, with a wide TV on the wall, and a computer in the corner. There were children's toys scattered along the ground, and the longest couch Rick had seen. The walls had been painted a bright, stark white. Which made the blood splattered along the wall stand out all the more brilliant, bright and almost beautiful among the purity of the wall.

The red sunlight was entering the room now, tinting everything with a dark look. Rick couldn't breathe, couldn't speak and couldn't move. The light filled up the room, and reflected off the blood.

_It was still wet. How fucking off had he been? If he had left sooner, would things have been different?_

Rick stood there, for a good ten minutes. Then that ten faded into twenty, and the picture in front of Rick didn't change. That was still Glenn sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest, and his face twisted in anticipation of pain. The sweat still shone on his body, and his right hand hung lip at his side. Glenn sat on that couch, and Glenn was dead.

That in its own was so incredibly fucked up. Glenn was their youngest functional member; a college aged kid with a smile that still managed to be bright even in the midst of the destruction of the world. Glenn had no ties to the group, no family, no lover, nothing. But he went with the flow, and he made the group his family. He took good care of a complete group of strangers. Rick had never questioned why, but maybe he should've. Maybe Glenn needed someone to ask that, needed someone to go out of their way to ask about him. This was the kid that had sacrificed everything, for nothing more than respect.

And it was that reason why it cut Rick so incredibly deep to see the pizza boy who rivaled most military strategist, lay with a gun dangling from his limp hand. The only explanation of a perfect bloody circle on his right temple, which lead to a spattering of blood on the other side of the couch that he sat on.

Rick could hardly believe what he was seeing. The image in front of him just, did not compute. Gory Glenn, dead Glenn. Even when he and the boy had trekked through downtown Atlanta covered in Walker guts, Glenn looked gorier now then he had at all during that little adventure. But still, something bugged the officer about the image in front of him. When it finally did hit him, it was as if the air flew out of his lungs and a hysterical grin stretched across his face.

The gore faced the other way. He could feel that grin on his face want to go one step further, and he wanted to laugh, a hysterical laugh that would lead to nothing but tears. The gore was on the other side of the couch, and Glenn's face was leaned more towards that way. The kid knew, the kid just fucking knew that the group would come looking for them soon enough. It was only a matter of time. And Glenn had made sure that this, discovery, wouldn't be any more terrible then it already was. As if that wasn't enough, all the supplies they had gathered, were piled on the floor, by the couch.

Oh God, Glenn took care of them. He coddled that entire group of people, and even so in death. Rick knew for a fact that the kid was left handed, because everyone was always giving the kid trouble over it when they would play cards, or anytime Glenn was placed in a close quarter situation. But the gun that dangled from his hand, well, was his right hand. That kid, he didn't want anyone to walk in on the wrong side of death.

But Glenn still looked dead, and it wasn't the bullet hole, or the pallor, or even the blood and brains splashed up against the wall. It was his arm. Just above the gun, in the shallowest part of the wrist, was a grotesque bite mark. Glenn had been chewed up good, and Rick could see the darkness of veins, some loosened in the mass of wrangled flesh, and there was the stark white of bone of that was almost impossible to miss.

On the other end of that couch, was something so fucking shocking that Rick almost had to double take. In the months that had followed his arrival to their group, Rick had never seen the younger Dixon brother stay still for very long. He probably was still the entire time he was hunting, so when he wasn't, he had to release all that pent up energy. Every time Rick came across the hunter, he was always doing something.

So when Rick saw that same jittery man, legs sprawled out on the couch like he had finally had some time to kick back and relax, frozen on that couch. Well, Rick was almost ready to call bluff. Maybe, this shit wasn't real. Maybe he wasn't seeing what he was. But, same as Glenn, there was blood painting the wall behind his head. Rick could only shake his head as he examined the body from his frozen post, Daryl had been bit too. _Twice._ The first one he found was on Daryl's forearm, like a mockery of the defensive wounds he'd been trained to look for. Daryl'd probably been defending his neck one the bolts ran out. The other marked its existence by the amount of blood that stained his blue jeans down by his calf. But unlike with Glenn, it's what he didn't see that threw Rick for a loop.

Daryl didn't look scared, or like he was about to be hit, or anything. If anything, the man looked like he was sleeping. The normally stern faced was completely relaxed, and the Sheriff realized that Daryl was a lot younger then he'd expected him to be. His right hand hung down, same as Glenn, but his gun was on the floor, and Rick noticed his thumb was bleeding. He must've been chewing more on that hand than usual. Lori had pointed that out to him; that Daryl was a nail biter. It had been lost on him at that time, what she was trying to tell him. But now, well hell, it couldn't be any clearer.

_Daryl was just as human as the rest of them. He didn't appear that way though, because he was so much better at survival then the rest of them. Daryl knew how to live._

Daryl did understand how to survive, and that was why his gun was on the ground. Daryl hadn't clung to his gun, the way Glenn did, because Daryl just knew he wouldn't need to. It wasn't his comfort in his final moments, and if it hadn't been for the blood colored sun, Rick might not have noticed what was. The light danced slightly off something in Daryl's fist, still relaxed, and Rick realized he'd have to move to see what it was.

Each step towards the two men was harder and harder to deal with. The closer he got to his friends, his _family_, that smell he'd encountered earlier hit him tenfold. Death, in its purest, darkest form.

He stood over the hunter, and peered closer towards the object in his hand, and was a little more than shocked to realize that it was a photograph.

_Privacy be damned, Rick didn't know Daryl in life, and he'd be damned if he walked away from this without learning something._

Rick pried the photo out of the hunter's hand, and winced as he felt the slight heat of Daryl's hands. He pulled the picture up to the face, and squinted in the dying light as he could make out a picture of Daryl, his arm wrapped around a woman in pink scrubs, his lips pressed to her cheek, a massive smile spread across her face.

Bile rose in the officer's stomach, and he put the picture back on Daryl's body. He couldn't stay here anymore. He turned on his heel, grabbed the supplies and hauled ass out into the fresher air, hands on his knees, gulping the air greedily. Rick felt Shane come up to his side, and put his hand on his friend's shoulder. Rick only had to look up, and Shane knew. Their search was in vain.

Rick ran his hands over his face, and looked up at Shane. "We can't leave them like that." His voice was horse, and cracked in a way he couldn't believe. His emotions were threatening to take over now, and he couldn't let that happen. Glenn and Daryl might've been able to take out an impressive number of Walkers, but they must not have been able to take them all out.

"What do you want to do brother?" Shane asked, Mossberg tossed over his shoulder, a remorseful look towards the house.

"We ain't leavin' them for Walker food." Rick decided, and looked at Shane. He ran his hand over his shaven head, and grabbed the bag of supplies. He rummaged around a bit, and pulled out a book of matches, and a bottle of whiskey.

Rick could only nod and take the bottle of whiskey, and he popped the top, and poured the majority of the liquid in the house, which he could barely enter. Then he threw the bottle up the stairs, so that the fire knew where to travel, and who to protect. Rick walked out, and looked at Shane, explaining without words that he couldn't do what needed to be done now. He'd seen them, up there. Glenn curled into himself, scared of the pain that would come with a pulled trigger, scared of what happened once you were finally dead. Daryl, more at peace then he'd ever seen the man, all of his thought on the girl in the pink scrubs.

Shane nodded, and walked into the house. Rick closed his eyes, and he heard the crack of the match as it caught, then the smell of smoke over took his senses. Shane came back moments later and he nudged Rick. Shane was right, Rick needed to watch this, it was the least he could do for those men. Those people and his friends, they were family damn it.

And there they stood; Rick and Shane, side by side watching the blood red sky become blocked out by the choking thickness of the smoke that rose from their final resting place. The smoke was an overpowering smell, but still, all Rick could smell, God all he could _taste_, was that smell of death.

And seeing what those two men had sacrificed, and how, even with death looming over them, they had gotten the supplies that the camp would need. They had given their all, for a group of strangers, or the group of people that had left their only kin to die. But those two had, and Rick, hell all of them, would never be able to repay them. They could live a thousand plus years, and they would never be able to repay the two.

So, Rick watched the building burn, crumble and die, and he couldn't help but take it as a sign, because without those two men, nothing would be the same. Not the dynamic, not the planning, just...nothing. Those men were not just valuble, they were family, and they were going to be missed.


End file.
